Texture in render does not appear the same as it is in 3D view
Viewport texture coordinates

The texture in the 3D view while using cycles are currently (2.77a) placed on the object's surface using the info from the selected UVmap, not from the node tree.

In your case the image you see in the 3D view in texured mode (UV) is probably placed in a different way than how it would with the material's coordintes for the texture /Generated).

Nodes just don't work (yet) "live" whith the material's node setup.

I personally think it will be improved and work the way you tried, there are already some signals around (e.g. it works already for the world background, it is one of the target of the viewport redesign project...), but at the moment, in order to get the result of your node setup, you must use the rendered view.